


Have/Need/Want

by nightmareonpaper



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Season/Series 05, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:21:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmareonpaper/pseuds/nightmareonpaper
Summary: After Spacekru escapes during the Eligius Riot, they find Clarke and Madi on the run from the Wonkru.(5x10 spec)





	Have/Need/Want

In the time since she heard that impossible voice crackle over the lasercom, the universe seemed to throw every possible obstacle between them. Days later, the fact that her friend had been alive all that time remained only a distant reality (though it provided a small modicum of comfort to know they had Clarke on their side.)

Raven didn’t have much time to imagine what it would be like to reunite with Clarke but, even without putting much thought into it, Raven assumed their reunion would be at least happy respite.

It really really wasn’t.

“He’s where?”

The girl was the one to speak up. Clarke remained quiet and cagey. The desperate hug Raven held in reserve remained at bay, obviously unwelcome.

“He was arrested. Octavia will make him fight in the pit! We have to go back!”

Her youthful determination was oddly refreshing, but Raven still needed answers.

“Clarke?”

The blonde fidgeted, displaying a vulnerability that seemed wrong coming from her. What happened to the Clarke she’d known? What happened to _Wanheda_?

“He was arrested,” Clarke echoed. “She’ll make him fight.”

Seriously? “Well, thank you for that useful elaboration, Clarke,” Raven snarked with a roll of her eyes. “ _Why_ was he arrested?”

For the first time in six years, those bright blue eyes bore straight into her own. Raven felt an overwhelming wave of misery flood between them.

“He poisoned Octavia.”

Raven’s own gasp was drowned out amidst the others’. They all—Echo, Emori, even Shaw with only his cliff notes understanding of the Blake siblings—stood frozen in shock. Or confusion. She couldn’t even put a single word to it. It simply didn’t make sense.

Echo didn’t let herself fall victim to the feeling for long. “That’s impossible. Bellamy would never,” she hissed, sidling up into Clarke’s space. “It was you, wasn’t it? And you let him take the fall.”

(Yup, this was about how Raven expected the Clarke/Echo reunion to go.)

Clarke’s face twisted into a snarl, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I wish I had. At least I would have finished the job!”

Despite her severe height disadvantage, Clarke was able to send Echo stumbling backwards with the sheer force of her fury.

“Then… how?” Echo’s voice was small as she rebounded, so unlike her past self. “Make me understand, Wanheda.”

Clarke only shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. Raven knew she was only barely restraining herself.

The little one tugged Clarke’s sleeve and Clarke seemed to reel herself in, but it was Madi who finally spoke. “Octavia was going to execute Clarke so Bellamy made her sick. Indra was supposed to lead Wonkru to surrender but they wouldn’t listen. So I had to—“

Clarke gripped the girl’s arm so hard Raven would be surprised if she wasn’t bruised in the morning. “Quiet, Madi!”

“It’s too late, Clarke!” Madi ripped her arm out of the hold. “I know now that there can be peace. With a true commander, we can stop the war! It was the only way to save you! Bellamy knew that.”

“Commander?” Shaw’s confused repetition pinpointed the importance of the word in Raven’s mind. A flash of the fierce and frightening girl who’d demanded Finn’s death ignited behind her eyelids.

Echo scoffed. “The age of the commanders is over. The line of natblidas fell with the rest of humanity.”

Clarke remained frozen, eyes fixed on Madi, but the girl stood taller.

“No. It did not.”

She couldn’t explain it, the feeling that flooded the room at Madi’s words. This kid exuded an air of power beyond her years. She demanded attention, deserved obedience, _commanded_ respect…

“Commander,” Echo and Emori whispered in awe.

“Madi, don’t,” Clarke pleaded. Raven could practically hear the tears in her voice. “We’ll take it out. He should never have—“

“He didn’t, nomon. I did.”

“You’re just a kid…”

“You were saying goodbye!” The overwhelming presence of strength Madi had embodied disappeared, leaving behind only a scared twelve-year-old girl. Her face scrunched up as tears fell from her eyes. “You tried to say goodbye to me, Clarke. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Clarke’s resolve melted away as well, her own tears pouring out as she pulled the girl into her arms.

“I don’t understand,” Emori riddled. “It didn’t work? They chose to follow Octavia?”

Her question was answered with silence.

“They don’t know, do they?” Echo growled.

“Octavia woke up,” Clarke shot back. “It wasn’t safe.”

“And Bellamy?” Raven whispered.

“There was nothing I could do.”

“Bull. Shit.” Raven stomped forward. Clarke couldn’t even look her in the eyes. How did she forget how furious Clarke often made her. “You don’t just give up. _We_ don’t just give up. Not on Bellamy.” Something uncomfortable stirred in her gut.

Clarke straightened up, never letting Madi out of her arms. “He did what he had to do. So did I.”

Raven gaped at her. “So he nearly murders his own sister to save your life and you leave him behind to die at her hand?”

“I never asked him to do that!”

“You didn’t have to!” Raven exploded, suddenly finding herself closer to Clarke than she had been in six years. “He would have done anything to keep you alive and you know it!”

And Clarke… Clarke laughed, a wet, bitter-sounding laugh. “You think he did that for _me_? He was trying to stop Octavia from killing all of _you_! And when that didn’t work, he tried to use Madi! He—” She choked on a sob, just barely able to finish. “He was willing to sacrifice her. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Clarke, he wasn’t ‘sacrificing’ her. He was—“

“She’s all I have,” Clarke snarled. “I’m all she has. And I will _never_ let Wonkru anywhere near her. I will never let _Bellamy_ anywhere near her.”

“What else could he have done Clarke? Tell me. Was he supposed to just let you die?”

“Yes!”

“Do you even know Bellamy Blake?”

Clarke’s eyes fluttered shut, face falling.

“Maybe if Madi didn’t have the flame, but after he—“ she took a careful breath as she fought back… well, Raven would never know what she held back, would she? “She was never going to let us leave. I did what I had to and I got Madi out.”

Raven could feel herself falling right into Clarke’s story. In one sentence, she took Raven on a roller coaster of guilt, regret, love, betrayal, and desperation.

“You guys should go.”

What?

“Take the rover and stop it.”

Clarke looked at them in disbelief as they continued to stare at her.

“Now!”

Emori hopped to it, darting toward the rover. Shaw turned his gaze back to Raven as if asking for direction, concern plain to see on his face. With a nod from her, he jogged back to the transport where the Wonkru defectors waited with Kane.

“He needs you and you run away,” Echo’s words were mocking and scornful as she sauntered past Clarke with a sneer.

Only Raven was left to see the despair in Clarke’s eyes in the following seconds before it vanishes.

“He doesn’t need me,” she spoke with a forced confidence, a failed attempt to cover the shaking in her voice. “He has y- all of you.”

Raven watched Echo’s shoulders tense as she walked away, Clarke didn’t bother.

And then Raven was looking into those shiny blue eyes and they were looking right back at her. She finally felt like they didn’t just come back, they came _home_.

She threw her arms around Clarke and hugged her tighter than she ever had.

“I need you,” she whispered against blonde hair. “Don’t make me mourn you again, Clarke. And dear god, please do not make me watch _Bellamy_ mourn you again. So just, stick around, okay?”

Something released within Clarke and she settled deeper into Raven’s arms, a steady cry overtaking her. Raven felt as if she was holding together Clarke’s broken pieces.

When Echo looked back for her, Clarke was still in her arms.

Raven simply lifted one hand and waved her on. From Echo’s harsh look, she could tell the grounder didn’t understand or approve of Raven staying behind.

But Clarke was right. Bellamy didn’t need Clarke. He didn’t need Raven. He had Echo and Emori and Monty and Harper.

But, Raven thought, Clarke needed her right now. So she stayed.

After all…

She kinda needed this, too.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I don't care enough to fix the issues with this before 5x10 airs and this becomes irrelevant so... whatever on that front. 
> 
> I was just trying to understand Clarke's actions in 5x09—apparently I think she was arguably sort of rational (enough to justify it to herself), but mostly just kinda f'd up from 6 years of isolation and trauma?
> 
> I also found that I could easily forgive/understand her actions if she tells the others while they still have time.
> 
> And all the Raven/Clarke love was kind of an accident and not what I think their reunion will look like... but I'll let them have it.


End file.
